When did most railroads start abbriviating their roadnames on their equipment? Seems like Union Pacific is one of few to still have the roadnames still spelled out on the side. Canadian National became CN, Candaian Pacific became CP Rail, Burlington Northern started as BN, and Burlington Northern started as BNSF…I mean really…ur not a railfan…a loco goes by and says BNSF…ur going uhh what does that mean…same thing a CSX…and it goes on and on…[:0][?][:o)][:p][:)][8D][:D][;)]
The big initials, primarily on boxcars, appears to have started in the late 1950’s. Pat McGinnis went for initials only on locomotives on both New Haven and B&M in the same time period. C&O/B&O went to initials only in the mid 1960’s.
The initials only form of corporate identification became a bit of a fad during the 1960’s and not just in railroading; American Machine and Foundry became AMF, Smith-Corona became SCM, etc.
With all due respects, Burlington Northern Santa Fe is a bit long to be painting on equipment and the full name does show up on the corporate herald on freight cars.
CSX started out as a temporary name during merger proceedings and it was kept. It seems to work better than anything else that could have been devised.
In general, I think there has been a simplification of the markings on cars. There used to be herald (often in color), slogans, even things like the NYC Pacemaker two-tone. Money is a significant part of it, I’m sure. Consider the labor necessary to paint the UP cars of the 60’s or so, with the herald, map of part of the system, etc. One stencil (or set of stencils), one pass with the gun, and they are done.
What does CSX stand for??
Yes someone please answer Kevins ??. I’d really like to know too.
This was in a Trains within the past year or so, but I don’t feel like digging it out, so here goes what I remember:
When the merger process first began, they started using CSX to represent the merged road. The C is for Chessie, the S is for Seaboard. The X was just a placeholder. May have been the possiblity of a third party, otherwise I don’t recall what it was holding the place of.
In the end, no one had come up with anything to replace the X, so CSX stuck. The aside on that, though, is that the RR reporting mark powers that be only allow a reporting mark to be an X under certain circumstances (leasing co cars? UTLX…), so all CSX rolling stock is has reporting marks of CSXT. I know, there are other marks out there in CSX land, but you get my drift.
If someone can find the article (maybe it was a letter to the editor), they can fill in my gaps.[:D]
I think that you pretty much nailed it tree. BTW does Conrail count as an abbriviation or not?
Well, back around 1840-1880, the B&O was the BALTo & OHIO on its boxcars, and CONRAIL does stand for the Consolidated Rail Corperation, so It would be considered an abbreviation
Chessie and Seaboard eXpanded…
LOL, How would you do a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Norfolk Southern Canadian National merger?
You almost have enough letters for another word all together!! Lets play anagrams
Conrail would be an accronym, not an abbreviation…[:)]
I always heard "Chessie/ Seabord combination (X) with smaller lines to later be incorperated)
The X in CSX was to represent that the result of adding Chessie and Seaboard together would be more than the sum of the two. It represents multiplication as where 3x2 is more than 3 plus 2.
OK, How about this one: …CHesapeake & ohio, + Union Pacfic+ Milwaukee+ kansas city Southern? C.H.U.M.P.S. .[8]
Yeah, I was going to say that. You cross Cheesie with Seaboard, and you get CSX.
Doesnt X also stand for “leasing”?
csx stands for
Conrails
Southern
Xtention
I thought that an abreviation is when you abreviate (Shorten) a word (ex: Jake instead of jacob), and an acronym is when you take the first letter to make a new word (ex: HOP instead of Help On Potrol)?
It’s been awhile, but If I recall properly, an abreviation is when you shorten a word… as in “Blvd.” for “Boulevard” or “St.” for “Street” and should properly be followed by a Period. Whereas taking component words and forming a word from it, example: Atlanta’s bus and subway company “Marta” (Mertopolitan Atlanta Rapid Transportation Authority) is an accronym.
I dated a gal named “Marta” while I was living in Atlanta years ago, and she set me straight on accronyms early in our relationship [B)]
CSX is the corporate holding company. Intermodal is a company separate from the railroad, which is CSXT. At one time, SeaLand was a part of CSX, and also, at one time, CS was for Chessie System which came along after CO+BO and then the Family Lines System (L&N and companies) were added along with SAL.
Before the ATSF-SP proposal, it was supposed to be SP-SAL. The various managements couldn’t stand to be in the same room at the same time. Too bad, so sad. The merger would have included the Family Lines, SAL and SP.
CSX is eXplained!!![:D]